Churchhoney

Distress signal from Derick?

Yeah, good point. I still think she probably would prefer blandness from most of her kids, though. Less competition for her and JB and fewer things to remember about them.

When it comes to offspring other than Josh and Josie, though, Michelle may view being bland as synonymous with being wonderful.

Yep. But, you know, it all starts to feel like crap at a certain point.

I predict Izzy will choose a life of celibacy. Nobody in this family matures past the age of 12.

Thanks. That sounds like what I'm used to seeing. Best wishes on baby #3!

I wanna hear more about Michelle's cooking. The capitalization is my favorite part.

How special. Jana gets to start her mega-brood with not one but two JSlaves of her very own! I love happy endings.

Jana'll have to give him keep-sweet lessons.

Good catch. I'll bet you're right.

Thanks. And congrats on your new family member!

I'm curious. When did it become the fashion to take many many solo pregnancy pictures -- in profile, always stick your bump out as far as possible and aim for the pouty and seductive look in all the preggers pics? I assume it's a tradition born of social media and it's sprung up in the last decade, but is it actually universal? It just seems so odd to me.

Gee, you mean the loud and ardent politically conservative Christian fundamentalists aren't being persecuted more than anyone else? Surely you are mistaken.

Hard to tell, but it's doing pretty well on the Internet so far, and it's only hours old. The New York Daily News, Page Six and Salon, among others, are carrying it. Spreading online doesn't necessarily mean it'll spread in other media, of course, but being on those sites suggests that it has fairly wide interest. Again, you're still looking at so many different angles to this whole story -- the political, the religious, the tv-business angles and more -- that substantial developments have a pretty highly likelihood of gaining legs, it seems to me. Of course, since this event isn't likely to play out quickly or in the open, maybe it won't have time to really catch fire.

Sadly, I'll bet you're exactly right.

The question that comes to my mind is What the hell is the point of these Jessa photos? I can't imagine why anyone would do this. It seems downright pathological, really.

No. And what's more, when they find out that we're criticizing her, Jim Bob and Michelle will start publishing their own daily duckface-cum-titty photos. That'll show us.

No. I wouldn't put it past them either. They'd consider it lying for God. He's on the money, after all.

Well, I know I'm Pollyanna-ing it again, but I kind of think that if he were as assimilated as he usually seems to be he wouldn't be doing this at all. Plus, he still is conscious of his family's college tradition, its college sports tradition, and thinks of Izzy in those terms. Can't help but think that there's a tiny spark of Dillard still in there. Pollyanna says: Maybe long distance, new people and interesting and meaningful non-Duggar experiences can blow the spark into a tiny flame?

The Duggar girls sure can arch their backs.

Isn't it nice to know that they're such devout Christians and hold to such a strict standard of morality that they would never do anything like this? Can't ever get past the idea that lying, control-freak grifter Jim Bob holds himself up as a moral role model.

I'm not a lawyer either. This seems right to me, though. I would love to have a window into JB's arrogant, stupid, ignorant brain as he struggles to figure out how he can make this go away without losing his very favorite thing -- money.

We don't know for sure that she's fundie any more, though, do we? She could have any developed any manner of belief systems and ideas after this much time has passed. It does seem a little unlikely that this will come to fruition, but it's also possible that this woman can have come to the conclusion that abusers and their enablers have reason to be ashamed when their names are known but former victims don't. Certainly within the realm of possibility -- especially if you were mad enough about the way the Duggars handled it.

I believe it's a fairly recent episode, where Josh and Anna go to DC or are about to go to DC and then they all attended a DC church? an Arkansas church? (dunno -- a Restoration Church, maybe?) I don't watch the show, so I don't know what they did, but I remember a lot of talk about how many of the kids had really shocked looks on their faces when the music was going on and some may have plugged their ears. I believe that the talk was not about toddlers but about the older kids as well, but, as I say, I've never seen it. If you're not allowed to sway momentarily with music playing in a thrift store, I'm sure that music with a beat in a church comes as quite a surprise.

Oh, my gosh. I do have a memory flash of RW saying Ernnst EEAAANNNGLEY! And it was perfect. Can't remember any of the rest of it though, but I'm sure it was perfect, too. I'm gonna look on youtube. Thanks for mentioning this.